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On this day: January 23

Posted: Jan 22, 2017 10:53 PM PST

Updated: Jan 23, 2018 03:49 PM PST

On this day: January 23

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2015: Hall of Fame baseball player Ernie Banks, who played shortstop and second base for the Chicago Cubs from 1953 through 1971, dies of a heart attack at age 83 in Chicago. Banks, who won the National League MVP award in 1958 and 1959, finished his career with 512 home runs, and his 277 homers as a shortstop were the most ever at the time of his retirement.
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Nathan Cremisino via Wikimedia Commons

2011: American fitness and nutritional expert Jack LaLanne, who is sometimes called "the godfather of fitness" and the "first fitness superhero," dies of pneumonia at the age of 96 in Morro Bay, California.
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Kevin Winter/Getty Images

2005: Late night talk show host Johnny Carson, best known for the 30 years he spent as host of "The Tonight Show," dies of respiratory failure arising from emphysema at the age of 79 in West Hollywood, California.
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CBS Television via Wikimedia Commons

2004: Actor Bob Keeshan, best known as the title character of the children's television program "Captain Kangaroo," dies at the age of 76 in Hartford, Vermont.
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Victor Malafronte/Getty Images

2003: Singer and actress Nell Carter, best known for her Broadway work and for starring on the TV sitcom "Gimme a Break!", dies from heart disease complicated by diabetes at the age of 54 in Beverly Hills, California.
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Don Davis for NASA via Wikimedia Commons

2003: NASA receives the final, very weak signal from Pioneer 10, the robotic space probe that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter, with the probe at a distance of 12 billion kilometers from Earth. Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System.
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Getty Images

2002: Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, where he had gone as part of an investigation into the alleged links between "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid and Al-Qaeda. He was beheaded by his captors nine days later. In March 2007, at a closed military hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said that he had personally beheaded Pearl.
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Alexandria County Sheriffs Department/Getty Images

2002: John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban," returns to the United States in FBI custody. Lindh was a United States citizen who was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. He would eventually be sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to supplying services to the Taliban and carrying an explosive during the commission of a felony.
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Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-116608

1989: Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work, including his best-known work, "The Persistence of Memory," which features melting pocket watches, dies of heart failure at the age of 84 in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain.
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1977: The TV mini-series "Roots," based on Alex Haley's novel "Roots: The Saga of an American Family," begins airing. The series finale, broadcast on Jan. 30, 1977, still holds a record as the third-highest-rated U.S. television program ever. The series would go on to earn 36 Emmy nominations, winning nine.
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Library of Congress, LC-USF34-013362-C

1976: Actor, singer, football player and social activist Paul Robeson dies of stroke complications at the age of 77 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Robeson became a football All-American and the class valedictorian at Rutgers University and went on to play in the NFL while attending Columbia Law School. At Columbia, he became a participant in the "Harlem Renaissance" with performances in stage productions "The Emperor Jones" and "All God's Chillun Got Wings." Robeson became an international cinematic star in roles in "Show Boat," "Bosambo" and "Sanders of the River," but turned his focus to civil rights, becoming politically involved in response to the Spanish Civil War, fascism and social injustices.
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ABC Television via Wikimedia Commons

1975: The TV sitcom "Barney Miller," set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village, makes its debut. The show, which starred Hal Linden (right) in the title role, would run for eight seasons before ending on May 20, 1982. The show would win three Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy Series in 1982, and two Golden Globes during its run.
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Jordan Strauss/Getty Images for Bethesda

1974: Actress Tiffani Thiessen, best known for her TV roles in "Saved by the Bell," "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "White Collar," is born in Long Beach, California.
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Rick Stewart/Getty Images

1969: Hockey Hall of Fame left winger Brendan Shanahan is born in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada. Shanahan played with the St. Louis Blues, Hartford Whalers, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils during a 21-year career, but is best known for his years with Detroit, helping the Red Wings to Stanley Cup championships in 1997, 1998 and 2002. He scored 656 goals in his NHL career, making him, at the time of his 2009 retirement, the leader among active NHL players for goals scored. He also won a gold medal as part of Team Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics.
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U.S. Navy via Wikimedia Commons

1968: North Korea seizes the Navy intelligence research ship USS Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated their territorial waters while spying. Two U.S. sailors were killed in the incident and the remaining 82 crew members were taken hostage as prisoners of war for 11 months before being released. The Pueblo is still held by North Korea today, moored as a museum ship in Pyongyang, and officially remains a commissioned vessel of the U.S. Navy.
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iStock/ABDESIGN

1964: The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified. Poll taxes appeared in southern states after Reconstruction as a measure to prevent black voters from voting. At the time of the amendment's passage, five states still retained a poll tax: Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi. While the amendment made the tax illegal in federal elections, it wasn't until 1966 that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that poll taxes for state elections were also unconstitutional because they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
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Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

1964: Actress Mariska Hargitay, the daughter of Jayne Mansfield best known for her role on the TV crime drama "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," is born in Los Angeles.
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U.S. Naval Historical Center via Wikimedia Commons

1960: The Trieste, a specially constructed bathyscaphe, or deep-sea submersible, descends 35,810 feet in the Pacific Ocean into Challenger Deep, the deepest point known to exist on Earth, in the Marianas Trench near the island of Guam. Jacques Piccard, the son of the Trieste's creator, Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard, and U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh made the five-hour descent, setting a deep-diving record that has stood unchallenged since.
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Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

1957: Princess Caroline of Monaco, the eldest child of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and American actress Grace Kelly, is born in Monaco.
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Connecticut State Library via Wikimedia Commons

1957: Wham-O begins producing its newly acquired toy, the Pluto Platter. The company would rename the toy the Frisbee in June 1957 in a move to stimulate sales of the flying disc. The toy's original inventor, Fred Morrison, is seen here promoting his Pluto Platter in the 1950s.
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Frederick J. Phillips via Wikimedia Commons

1951: Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who captained US Airways Flight 1549 to an emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York City in 2009, is born in Denison, Texas.
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Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

1950: Actor Richard Dean Anderson, best known as the star of the TV shows "MacGyver" and "Stargate SG-1," is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Amias Archives via Wikimedia Commons

1944: Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, whose best known work is "The Scream," dies at age 80 in Oslo, Norway.
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http://oiff.com.ua/old/ via Wikimedia Commons

1944: Actor Rutger Hauer, best known for his roles in movies such as "Nighthawks," "Blade Runner," "Ladyhawke" and "The Hitcher," is born in Breukelen, Utrecht, Netherlands.
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Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons

1943: Duke Ellington plays at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
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Library of Congress, LC-DIG-hec-21329

1941: Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
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Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

1911: Marie Curie's nomination to the French Academy of Sciences, having already won one Nobel Prize, is nevertheless voted down by the Academy's all-male membership. She went on to win a second Nobel Prize later in the year.
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Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

1898: Pioneering film director Sergei Eisenstein, best known for his silent films "Strike," "Battleship Potemkin" and "October," is born in Riga, Latvia, in what was then the Russian Empire. He died of a heart attack at age 50 on Feb. 11, 1948.
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Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

1898: Actor Randolph Scott, whose career spanned from 1928 to 1962, with most of his work coming in westerns, is born in Orange County, Virginia. Some of his best known films include "The Last of the Mohicans," "Western Union," "Go West, Young Man," "Virginia City" and "Ride the High Country." He died of heart and lung disease at age 89 on March 2, 1987.
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Edwin D. Harvey via Wikimedia Commons

1855: The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota; a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.
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National Library of Medicine via Wikimedia Commons

1849: Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her medical degree by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor.
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Nadar via Wikimedia Commons

1832: Painter Édouard Manet, a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism, is born in Paris, France. Some of Manet's masterworks include "The Luncheon on the Grass" and "Olympia."
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Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

1803: Arthur Guinness, the Irish brewer who founded the Guinness brewery business, dies at the age of 77 or 78 in Dublin, Ireland.
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Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

1789: Georgetown University, the first Catholic university in the United States, is founded in Georgetown, Maryland, now a part of Washington, D.C.
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John Singleton Copley via Wikimedia Commons

1737: Merchant, statesman and patriot John Hancock, who served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is born in Braintree, Massachusetts, in a part of town that eventually became the separate city of Quincy. Hancock is also remembered for his large and stylish signature on the United States Declaration of Independence.
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Roke via Wikimedia Commons

1556: The deadliest earthquake in recorded history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China, destroying a 521-mile wide area. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.
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